Opening with words from Richard Gere and Keanu Reeves, this series of 13 half-hour videos is aimed at presenting Buddhism to the English speaking world. It is offered with a Tibetan orientation to Mahayana Buddhism, but is presented in a generally non-sectarian manner that I appreciate.

There are several nits I could pick, such as, in the first module on mind, Ven. Robina Courtin begins by saying, "So okay, mind. Generally speaking in Buddhism you could say it's synonymous with the word consciousness." I find that this is the position generally of Tibetan Buddhism which does not seem to distinguish consciousness from mind and therefore appears to conflate and confuse consciousness-only, i.e., vijnana-matra, with mind-only, i.e., citta-matra. So if I were to present a module on mind I would begin by distinguishing mind from consciousness rather than asserting they are synonymous. But, it's all good, yes?

Overall the series is valuable to students of Buddhism who are able to listen with an inquiring mind of awakening.

Discovering Buddhism Module 1 - Mind and its Potential

Discovering Buddhism Module 2 - How to Meditate

Discovering Buddhism Module 3 - Presenting the Path

Discovering Buddhism Module 4 - The Spiritual Teacher

Discovering Buddhism Module 5 - Death and Rebirth

Discovering Buddhism Module 6 - All about Karma

Discovering Buddhism Module 7 - Refuge in the three Jewels

Discovering Buddhism Module 8 - Establishing a daily Practice

Discovering Buddhism Module 9 - Samsara and Nirvana

10 Discovering Buddhism - Samsara and Nirvana

11 Discovering Buddhism - How to Develop Bodhichitta

12 Discovering Buddhism - Transforming Problems

13 Discovering Buddhism - Wisdom of Emptiness

Why you do not understand is because the three carts were provisional for former times, and because the One Vehicle is true for the present time. ~ Zen Master 6th Ancestor Huineng

Vajrayana puts the fun practices back into the Mahayana. Maybe some of our more able and daring practitioners can turn a few olde Zen Masters into Yidams ... that would certainly put the stillness into motion ...

In the first module the lady says that mind is everything we experience : intellect, thought, concepts, emotions etc... She also says that our mind has no beginning. Our present state of mind is due to our previous state of mind; so whenever there was mind there was always a previous state of mind. Mindblowing stuff. Aaauuummmm.

ed blanco wrote:I never get tired of listening to the same teachings and beginnings.What's wrong with me?

Isn't it a chan saying, 'you never enter the same streaming twice'?Maybe this fresh, beginner mind can be applied to watching paint dry, hearing each mantra with fresh eyes and listening for the mind cracking into Emptiness ...

ed blanco wrote:I never get tired of listening to the same teachings and beginnings.What's wrong with me?

Isn't it a chan saying, 'you never enter the same streaming twice'?Maybe this fresh, beginner mind can be applied to watching paint dry, hearing each mantra with fresh eyes and listening for the mind cracking into Emptiness ...

If zazen is the main course these talks or just about any teisho is the dessert. I rather watch grass grow.

I see that it is mostly Gelugpa teachers in that introduction. Some new Kadampa, and others like H.H the Dalai Lama.

In Tibetan buddhism there are two sorts of mind the primary mind and the secondery.Primory mind is more clouse to emptiness and secodery mind is "more" developed, with sences like hering, tasting, feeling, and so on..They also have locations in the brain, the secondery is "in" the frontal loobs and i guess mind is located in the all parts of the brain for them.

So the 2nd module tells us that, in the beginning, meditation is learning how to concentrate. Its an effort to gain gradual control of the mind, in order to arrive at calm abiding for our own mental and physical suppleness. Thanks to this suppleness we are able to "be there for others" and maybe even "see that everything is a projection".

In Tibetan buddhism there is definately the idea of effort and progression which will obviously affect ones practise. Not to mention logic and analysis which are also supposed to help us arrive at the "correct" understanding.

lobster wrote:Isn't it a chan saying, 'you never enter the same streaming twice'?

Greek.

Heraclitus. Before (earlier than) Socrates.

And, interestingly, nonetheless, for him the First Principle was FIRE. I suppose having all that hypothetical fire around made him cognizant of the value of having a river to wade into, or jump into, "in case".

--Joe

EDIT: @ 10:50 UTC, April 25, 2017

p.s. If I were to endeavor to Ch'an-ify Heraclitus' famous statement ("A man cannot step into the same river twice"), I'd say:

'One cannot step into the same river even once.' All kidding aside, now. _/\_ , -J.